


Practice My Confession

by Leamas



Category: All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 09:59:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17896358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leamas/pseuds/Leamas
Summary: Ellington is not innocent. She hasn't been innocent for years.





	Practice My Confession

As a girl Ellington Feint read books about serial killers and child kidnappers and tax-dodging politicians and war criminals (although that was mostly covered by politicians) and cult leaders, and sometimes about their wives and husbands who knew what they did and said nothing. (There was little ever written about their children.) She’d read biographies about people who had been in prison and now lived among the rest of the world—drug dealers and murders; men and women who served their sentences or were released early for good behaviour; people whose sentences were reversed in light of new evidence, but who still lost part of their lives although they were innocent. Usually, though, prison lived at the end of books with happy endings: the guilty party was locked away, and all innocent victims were safe.

Was Ellington innocent? Of course not. She was sitting in a small sub-library on the second floor of a dead man’s mansion, holding a book covered in blood on her lap. At fifteen she hadn’t been innocent either. When Hangfire found her in prison after her first arrest, she wasn’t surprised to be there; she was only worried that she’d be left there, because then she’d never have the chance to save her father. Nothing else, at the time, mattered. She’d known that she was committing villainous acts for a cruel man, but she decided to be okay with that. What other choice did she have?

She had a lot of choices now.

To start with, she could have decided not to take this job. Saint Justine, the woman that Ellington worked for ( _with_ , she reminded herself, and only on occasion, when Saint paid her; Saint was the only one who said that Ellington worked _for_ her) had asked Ellington do this as a favour that she would be compensated for. After only a little bit of deliberation, Ellington agreed. What could Saint have done? Hurt her? She had no power over Ellington, no leverage—Ellington had no one left for Saint to lock up and use against her.

But Saint could have found another thief and thrown Ellington away. Their relationship was professional, first and foremost; the rest of it was worthless without Ellington’s willingness to work for her.

Saint had asked her to steal a book—a rare book, but not a book that would be impossible to find elsewhere, especially when money wasn’t an issue. But Saint wanted this particular copy, for sentimentality or something equally frivolous. Whatever. Saint would pay Ellington, so Ellington would do it. She liked the challenge. And she’d realised pretty quickly that the hardest challenge would be finding the book in a house with a library of this size, which was why Ellington came tonight. The owner of the book, Rob, was hosting a party, the kind that everyone who mattered attended, meaning hundreds of people were there, who all wanted to matter. Usually she would just come alone, but instead Ellington decided to bring Ariadne to come with her. Ariadne was Saint’s servant, a young man only fifteen years old. He’d lived with Saint since he was seven, apparently, and in that time Saint taught him to be good at following orders and doing what he was told. But Ellington also recognised that he was very good at working out the logistics of infiltration and being invisible in a crowded room, and so she’d taken him with her. The mansion was crawling with people, and Ellington knew that she would not have nearly as much success if she’d come alone.

Ariadne worked out how to get an invitation—a word that here means “sneak in”—and once inside, directed Ellington to the library. All that Ellington wanted to do was find the book; she’d come back for it later. She looked, and looked and looked and looked and looked until Ariadne informed her that she was starting to look suspicious. Ellington talked to some of the other bookworms, hoping for an idea about where the book might be, until she began running the risk of being recognised. She went to get a drink and mingle after that (and here “mingle” means “lurk at the side of the room”.)

The library was well-organised, so after thinking for the course of a few drinks Ellington concluded that if she couldn’t find it there based on any logic that she could think of, she should start looking somewhere else. After informing Ariadne of her observation, he manoeuvred her into Rob’s personal study, which is how Rob found her.

“How did you get here?” he asked crossly.

“I’m lost,” Ellington blurted out. Setting down her empty glass of wine, Ellington feigned being drunk as she fell into the chair. “I was only looking for a quiet room, while my headache cleared.”

“You need to find someplace else,” he said, taking her by the arm and roughly pulling her to her feet.

As he dragged her towards the door Ellington tried to look drunk and confused rather than annoyed; he didn’t seem to give her a second glance, though. Now that she was an adult Ellington found that most people didn’t look too closely at her, not like when she was a child. Back then everyone had looked at her and assumed her to be bad news, and in everyone’s defence she had been. But what else could she be?

“Wait,” said Ellington.

Rob paused in the doorway. “What?”

“Let me get my glass.”

“Go back to the party and get another,” he said, but Ellington pulled her arm from his grip with a surprising strength for a drunk woman. She faux-stumbled over to the desk, gripping the glass tightly, then pretended to fall against the bookshelf, where she’d just spotted the book that Saint was after. Ellington tucked it under her shawl, then straightened her back and stared right into the face of the man that she was here to rob.

“Let’s go get another glass!”

Ellington made it as far as the door when Rob grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn and face him.

“What did you take?”

“Excuse me?” Ellington asked.

He shook her, tightening his grip on her arm. The book tucked under her arm threatened to fall. “I said, what did you take?”

Ellington stared at him, then raised the wine glass and hit him over the head with it. He shouted, then shoved her away, then changed his mind and grabbed her hair, dragging her forward. She clawed at him with her painted nails, drawing blood and forcing him to release her. It worked, but the book fell.

Rob looked at it. He looked back to her. As Ellington watched, everything about his face changed, a mask falling over it that he looked out of with pure hatred.

“Thief,” he snarled, before lunging at her with a new force.

It was only when he was dead, his throat slit, and when Ellington saw the blood on her dress that she realised how badly this was going.

She’d hurt her leg badly, but with some effort she could stand. Ellington lifted the book from a pool of blood and flicked through it, scarcely able to believe that she’d just killed a man for this. He’d attacked her, of course, but it wasn’t as if that had nothing to do with her. What would Saint think, to see this book covered in blood? Probably she wouldn’t care. There were annotations in the margins, all in a code that Ellington didn’t recognise. That was what she was after, wasn’t it? Ellington snapped the book shut and tucked it under her arm again, hiding it with her shawl.

It would have been easier to slip away if Ariadne hadn’t found her.

“What happened?” Ariadne asked, unable to look away from the dress.

“I got the book.”

“It looks like someone died.”

“Someone did,” Ellington snapped. “Did I bring you here to ask questions? We need to leave. Now.”

They were making good progress on their departure through the exceedingly large mansion that reminded Ellington more like a school or an institutional facility than a house. It reminded her of Wade Academy—not because of anything in particular, but because Ellington thought of that school when she was trying to escape a large labyrinth of a building. They were stopped just a few hallways short of the back door. Ellington, who couldn’t be seen with blood all down the front of her dressed, ducked into one of the side-hallways and pretended to admire one of the expensive pieces of art.

“What are you doing here?” the man who found them, a member of the house staff, asked.

“I—I don’t know,” Ariadne said. “I was looking for someone. I got lost.”

“Who?”

 _Please_ , Ellington begged the portrait in front of her, _don’t let him say my name_.

“Rob,” Ariadne said.

Silence seemed to fall over the whole mansion, even the noise from the other rooms, where no one could have heard or cared what was being said here.

“I suppose you don’t know that he’s dead,” said the other man. “I’m on my way to lock the back door. We don’t want anyone leaving before the authorities have the chance to fix this.”

Ellington ran. With the injury to her leg, her movements were clumsy and not nearly as silent as she would have liked, but she tried anyway. She left Ariadne to deal with the questions. What else could she do? It was a prison sentence if she stayed to allow herself to be caught, and she had spent enough time behind bars. At least at the time she’d been trying to do something necessary—it might not have been good, but it had been for her father. This was just a favour for Saint Justine, who would throw Ellington away more easily than Ellington could ever refuse Saint anything.

She hated her in that moment. Saint was an evil woman who kidnapped children and stole and lied, as bad as Hangfire had ever been. She hated feeling helpless against this woman who had no leverage against her, but who wanted things from her enough that Ellington could pretend that she was wanted.

Now Ellington sat in one of the upper-floor libraries. Why _did_ book people have so many libraries? Ellington held the book in front of her. At least if someone stumbled in, she wouldn’t have to look far for a place to hide the book in hand. If she weren’t hurt then it would be easy to climb out the window and down the lattice in the garden. The police had arrived, at some point; Ellington had seen their blue lights from outside. Everyone attending the party would be gathered together in one of the rooms downstairs, and Ellington needed to be gone by the time someone remembered her.

“What do I do now?” Ellington asked herself, although with much more vibrant language.

She did not expect an answer, but at that moment the door opened. Before even thinking about all the blood on her dress, Ellington shoved the book behind her back before staring in horror at the door.

“Wow,” said a familiar voice. “This is surprising.”

Ellington narrowed her eyes suspiciously as the door closed. She crossed her arms over her chest. “What do _you_ want?”

“Nothing that you can give me,” said Kit Snicket. She looked at Ellington sadly. “It seems that you got yourself into quite the mess.”

“You don’t know anything about it.”

Kit shrugged. “Perhaps not. You are the last person that I expected to be here, so perhaps I’m in no position to talk about what you’re doing.” She walked to the first bookshelf in the corner and scanned each title.

When they knew each other, Ellington had not known what to think of Kit. Although her hair was light, there was a clear resemblance to Lemony. She’d seemed smaller, then, and frail, although in due time Ellington realised well enough that she was anything but. They escaped the cell on the train and lived wildly together for a few days, and soon Ellington saw that Kit was admirably resourceful. It was hard to find a chance to slip away, but Ellington managed. Now she was taller, and stronger; there were tired bags under her eyes, and the bones on her shoulder and neck stood out dramatically. Still Kit looked serious, and cool, and completely in control of the situation.

The longer that Kit studied the bookshelf, the more that she realised Kit was not just examining the books, but actually looking for something. Quietly, Ellington shifted to better cover the book behind her.

“What’s happening downstairs?” Ellington asked.

“A boy was arrested,” Kit said. “The police are still asking everyone about what they remember this evening.”

“Great.”

“They think that someone else was involved.”

“Why?”

“Because a wineglass was used to murder the host,” Kit said, “and as you know, children can’t drink.”

Ellington snorted. She felt that she ought to say something to Kit, but to her horror she wanted only to explain why she’d left Ariadne to his fate. She wanted to defend herself. What could she have done, except run? Saint Justine would want him back, and she had the money and resources to do it. ( _Like she’d take care of you, Ellington, if you were caught?_ The question came to her in someone else’s voice, and she ignored it.)

The point was that Ariadne didn’t have to be here. Saint Justine wasn’t holding any of _his_ family hostage. And anyway, Ellington was a terrible, evil woman. Why was she surprised at herself now?

“You’ve made things very difficult for me tonight,” Kit said once she finished examining all the books on that side of the room.

“You mean that _you_ didn’t kill him?” Ellington asked.

“No.”

“Then I’m sorry for ruining your dinner party, Kit.”

“Will you be able to get out of here?”

“Sure,” Ellington said. “I’m just waiting for the right time.”

“When will that be?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I care about you.”

Ellington snorted, looking away from Kit towards the window, and the blue lights outside. “That’s great.”

“I can see that it’s partially my fault that you are in this situation,” Kit said. “Things would have been different for you if I didn’t let you leave after our escape.”

“You couldn’t have stopped me,” Ellington snapped.

Kit remained silent, and upon sparing a glance at the woman Ellington saw that still, Kit watched her sadly—perhaps even more so than before. But was Ellington wrong? Kit couldn’t have done anything to stop her then, Ellington was sure of it. She was resourceful and clever, but Ellington had just recently learned what she was capable of. Kit had been too kind to her back to do the things that would be necessary to stop Ellington.

“Why do you care, anyway?” Ellington asked. “I’ve done terrible things.”

“I do,” Kit said. “I wanted to help you then.”

“I’m not an innocent girl caught up in something,” Ellington said. “I am not the kind of person that you would want to help.”

“But do you want me to help you?” Kit asked. “Do you want me to get you out of here?”

Ellington nodded.

Kit knelt down in front of Ellington, looking directly into her eyes. “Do you trust me?”

There was no time for Ellington to give her answer before the door opened. Ellington froze, but in one fluid motion Kit covered the evidence on Ellington’s dress with her own body, leaning against Ellington and wrapping her hands around her back, covering the blood stains on Ellington’s evening dress with her own skirt. She silenced Ellington by kissing her, and Ellington let her.

“I—oh, excuse me, Ma’am,” the officer said. “Is it just you two in here?”

“Yes,” Kit said. “We’ve been here for much of the evening.”

“Much of the… oh,” he said. “A crime has been committed downstairs, and we’re taking statements from everybody.”

“Can you give us a moment to collect our bearings?” Kit asked, looking over her shoulder. Ellington was still aware of how Kit’s hand on her arm.

“Yes,” the officer said. “Certainly. I’m sure you’re not in trouble, but it’s just a formality.”

As soon as the police left them alone, Kit turned back to Ellington. She pressed a key into Ellington’s hand and stared at her very intently.

“In the room across the hallway, you’ll find a locked door that opens onto a flight of dark stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, you’ll find a tunnel that will help you escape. Do you understand?”

“Those aren’t difficult instructions to remember,” Ellington said. “It’s awfully convenient, isn’t it?”

“Do you trust me?”

Ellington was silent. She wanted to believe that Kit would help her, but she could think of no reason why she would. After all, Ellington had not helped Ariadne; Saint Justine would not help either of them. No one that she’d been close to since she was fifteen had helped her; and the last time that she’d tried to help anyone, it involved doing many evil things.

Kit stood, looking down at her. “I suppose that I’ll know soon enough. But I must leave.”

“Will you find me again?” Ellington asked.

“Perhaps,” Kit said.

Ellington watched as Kit left, turning down the hallway towards the stairs that led downstairs. Would Ellington ever see Kit again? Did she want to? Yes, of course she did. She wanted desperately to see Kit again, but she was less certain that she wanted to hear what Kit had to say to her.

Shaking, Ellington tried to collect herself. There were things that she had to do first. Escape. Bring the stolen book to Saint. Get paid for it. Let her leg recover. She’d decide what to do after all of that, when the time came. She’d wait for Kit, or find her on her own.

Ellington reached behind her for the book, only to realise very suddenly that it was gone.

 


End file.
